The Corporate War Media’s Cruel and Irresponsible Lynching of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl

(Photo: James Pollock)You fasten all the triggersFor the others to fireAnd then you sit back and watchWhen the death count gets higher

And you hide in your mansionAs the young people's bloodFlows out of their bodiesAnd is buried in the mud...

- Bob Dylan, "Masters of War"

Last week, President Obama gave an emotionally stirring announcement with Sergeant Bergdahl's grateful parents by his side in the White House Rose Garden concerning the return of their beloved son, Sgt. Bowe Berghahl, who's been held in captivity for five years in Afghanistan. Obama explained that they "made a deal to bring home the longest-held American captive of America's longest war."

It didn't take long for Republicans and the right-wing media to attack President Obama for doing something that was morally right for a change: for taking ethical action that brings us closer to shutting down Guantanamo Bay Prison, as I wrote in my last Buzzflash-Truthout commentary, a prison widely known for its illegal practice of indefinite detention, and for its CIA horrors of physical torture and psychological abuses.

Democrat Dianne Feinstein, prosecutor of ethical whistleblowers' Julian Assange (founder of Wikileaks) and Edward Snowden (whistleblower on NSA's surveillance abuses), joined angry Republicans' crazy John McCain, Ted Cruz, and other moral midgets to instigate a bully attack, insisting that the exchange of the Taliban prisoners for Mr. Bergdahl puts American lives at risk, a statement meant to stir up the pit bulls at the corporate media, to block any hope of shutting down GITMO.

After all, most Republicans think GITMO is a symbol of unlimited power to the world, and most Bush-Cheney Republicans have turned a blind eye to torturing human beings in the most sickening, gruesome ways, including raping males with harsh instruments—at GITMO.

These same loud-mouth critics never so much as peeped when G.W. Bush took Executive Action to break our national laws over and over again, beginning with the illegal invasion of Iraq. The Bush-Cheney White House is responsible for killing and maiming over a million Iraqis and Afghan civilians. Not a peep from these cowards over the unconstitutional act of detaining individuals without trial or charge and torturing them at Guatanamo Bay, and at CIA black sites, not so much as a bark from these same critics when W. and Cheney violated long standing, international treaties after WWII, and our own national laws of committing pre-emptive attacks; not a sigh of complaint concerning the illegal tactics of spying on all Americans illegally—but the minute President Obama wants to rescue one of our own soldiers who was held captive for five years, the minute he steps forward to begin the process of shutting down this hell-hole called GITMO—they're suddenly ever so concerned about the laws.

As for desertion, that's exactly what George W. Bush did while serving in the National Guard: The facts were all available to the press that W. went AWOL, but instead of investigating the truth, they covered for Bush, and then he became President.

It's utterly shameful and disgraceful to see how these senators and the corporate media lynched this young man, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, on the rumor that he deserted. They have no clue as to what happened. Whatever the circumstances, Senators' McCain and Feinstein have now put this young man's life in harm's way by stirring up fears, hate and anger, by blaming him for the loss of other soldiers' lives who allegedly tried to locate Bergdahl.

Thanks to these irresponsible senators who pushed for a prosecution in the press, the town of Hailey, Idaho, have canceled the celebration for the return of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl as planned. Shameful.

If anything happens to Bowe Bergdahl when he returns home, if a bunch of lunatics that were fanned by the flames broadcasted across the US corporate media in its appetite for cruelty, bent on persecuting this young man, if anything happens to him, here at home, Bergdahl's family should sue the senators that provoked this unnecessary anger, and they should sue the corporate media networks for lynching one of our own; for promoting accusations, rumors and hatred aimed at Bergdahl and at Obama.

It's important to understand, as Amy Goodman reported, that nearly all the soldiers under Bergdahl's command expressed disillusionment over this so-called war; they didn't want to harm or kill the Afghan people. "They got dicked around by the Russians, and now here we are—giving them hell. They just want to be left alone."

As for Insane McCain and war-monger Feinstein, a Democrat who clearly abandoned the Democratic platform principles a long time ago in favor of surveillance, wars, and torture prisons – I leave them with Odetta's haunting rendition of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War."

How much do I know?Oh, to talk out of turnYou might say that I'm youngYou might say I'm unlearned

But there's a one thing I knowThough I'm younger than youThat even Jesus would neverForgive what you do...